I thought the book was ok but I wouldn't say it was great. It was great reading up until the Furies were introduced and then it went in a direction that was pretty pedestrian. To me I see the direction DW took the book in as a missed opportunity. DW had an almost mythical warrior now in league with honest to goodness mythological beings and what does he do? He decided to make the beings LESS mythical. I know this is a bit of "Monday morning quarterbacking" but I wished he took the story away from describing her series of conflicts and focused instead on how the players in her universe were dealing with her new found power. Word of mouth whisperings, testimonials, news reports, growing reputation, heated recollections, calls for official intervention, etc.; where legends are made and mythologies created. It would takes some creativity but I would have wished for never seeing Alicia again and instead have the story seen through the eyes of say some kind of journalist recalling "tall stories" and trying to find the "truth behind the legend".

Paladin62 wrote:It's kind of a shame that there's no way that the Honorverse andthat of Alicia DeVries can interact -- can you imagine the following:

The first face-to-telempathic face meeting between a bonded treecat andTisiphone?

Mesa's best genetically-enhanced assassins finding out the hard waythat there's someone who's even more of a hard-core killer than theyare?

And last but not least,

The five Mandarins and the SLN's upper brass suffering from a suddenbout of Loose Sphincter Syndrome upon the discovery of a ship that'seven scarier than anything the Manties or their allies have?

I don't know about the rest of you out there, but I think that'd makefor some interesting reading.

Paladin62

Any ship from Alicia's Universe down to the weakest destroyer is more powerful than any ship in honor's verse because they use a portable black hole as shield and drive and that can wipe out the missiles of even pod launches as it is or even ships of Honor's verse. Their missiles are the same. It is a much different technology and universe and shouldn't mesh though I do admit a meeting between Honor and Alicia would be incredible.

Two strong females with psychic type abilities, ability to be relentless and both knowing the price of honor and what it means to be broken to the core.

Not so sure about your idea of relative power... In Alicia's universe, the best missiles are super light, yes, but they're unguided. In the Honorverse the missiles are slower but guided. And in N-space the actual damage is not done by the missile but by the light-speed focused energy beam FROM the missile. Additionally, where the missiles in the "Furyverse" are incredibly expensive, they are much less so in the Honorverse, meaning that the chance of a saturation attack is much higher. I can't speculate about the effectiveness of the Honorverse penetration aids (penaids) against the Furyverse EW defensive capabilities - not nearly enough information.